43. Eleazar, called Avaran, saw one of the beasts covered with royal armor and bigger than any of the others, and so he thought the king was on it.
44. He gave up his life to save his people and win an everlasting name for himself.
45. He dashed courageously up to it in the middle of the phalanx, killing men right and left, so that they parted before him.
46. He ran under the elephant, stabbed it and killed it. The beast fell to the ground on top of him, and he died there.
47. But when Judas’ troops saw the strength of the royal army and the ardor of its forces, they retreated from them.
48. Some of the king’s army went up to Jerusalem to attack them, and the king established camps in Judea and at Mount Zion.
49. He made peace with the people of Beth-zur, and they evacuated the city, because they had no food there to enable them to withstand a siege, for that was a sabbath year in the land.
50. The king took Beth-zur and stationed a garrison there to hold it.
51. For many days he besieged the sanctuary, setting up platforms and siege engines, fire-throwers, catapults and mechanical bows for shooting arrows and projectiles.
52. The defenders countered by setting up siege engines of their own, and kept up the fight a long time.
53. But there were no provisions in the storerooms, because it was the seventh year, and the reserves had been eaten up by those who had been rescued from the Gentiles and brought to Judea.
54. Few men remained in the sanctuary because the famine was too much for them; the rest scattered, each to his own home.